When I hear the words "demo play", the first thing I think about are those old demos that used to kick in when you left a game in the "Press Start" screen for too long. Nintendo is taking the demo play idea to a whole new level, however. In an interview with USA Today, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that they're adding an optional feature -- called "demo play" -- that will make the Wii even more accessible by making games play themselves.

When Activision's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii) was first announced, a number of gamers pointed out that they want a bit more variety in their Guitar Hero games. From all indications, that's exactly what we'll be getting when this title comes out. If you want to find out more, head on over to the full article.

 

GameStop has taken out a full-page advert in USA Today to emphasize its ongoing commitment to stop minors buying games that are deemed inappropriate for their age group. Clive Olivera, a spokesperson for GameStop, sat down with gaming news site Eurogamer and said the following:

We, GameStop, as well as other retailers, have already stepped up with ESRB to regulate ourselves. ...That's what this is all about. We wanted to bump it up and let the public know, especially consumers, that it is something we actually take quite seriously.

...One mature-rated game sold to a minor is one too many. It's our goal to provide as much education as we can, not only to our employees but to consumers in general.

The advert features a rather huge, slightly weird image of Steve Morgan, President of Gamestop corporation, above which is the "Respect the Ratings" slogan in bold print.

The campaign doesn't just stop with the print ad though, respecttheratings.com is also up and running. The goal here is to educate people and get them to care and be involved - instead of shouting at them, bullying them, exploiting and using them as a rallying point, and threatening them with lawsuits. We suggest that you check out the site yourselves. You can access it via our "read" link below. See if you can contribute anything.

And the Wii rumor mill continues to churn its way around gaming communities everywhere as new bits of information seem to keep circulating around this nifty little console. And the latest addition to this batch of maybes? That a simple firmware update will make the DVD version of the Wii an HDTV-compatible system. This theory is gleaned from a short interview with Ninty's Reggie and USA Today, from which he is quoted as saying:

"Tough choices about not including a DVD player at the start, tough choices about not including high-definition capability at the start. That’s because we wanted a mass-market price, and we believe the market will validate those decisions come launch day on this Sunday."

To further chase this shadow of a possibility, Game Informer is also noted to have given Nintendo PR people a call about the matter, and was given the answer that "if Microsoft could enable 1080P with a firmware update, then Nintendo might be able to do the same thing". Well, let's just hope that later firware updates don't end up bricking the Wii, though...

Because of these two pieces of information, speculations have been flying as to how exactly this may affect the way that the Wii is sold. Until we receive confirmation about the matter, though, let's just sit back for now and see if all the necessary ingredients for this supposed-feature will jump into the cooking pot on its own, and graduate from rumor to fact.